Two Top Republicans to Call for Full JFK Disclosure

Two senior Capitol Hill Republicans plan to introduce a congressional resolution calling for full disclosure of U.S. government records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) will introduce their JFK resolution before the end of the month, according to Jones.

“I want to make sure that the information that is owed the American people is made available,” the veteran North Carolina conservative said in an exclusive interview with AlterNet. “The American people are sick and tired of not being given the truth. “

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The JFK Records Act of 1992 mandated full disclosure of all government records related to the assassination within 25 years. Some four million pages of records were released in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Another 100,000 pages of assassination-related material from a dozen government agencies must be made public by the statutory deadline of Oct. 26, 2017.

Under the law, the CIA, FBI and other government agencies can postpone release of still-secret JFK records after October 26—but only with the written permission of the president.

“We going to take a very positive approach and thank the agencies that have the information and are making it public,” Jones said. “At the same time we want to put some pressure on the agencies to release all the information they have.”

CIA Hedging

The CIA declined to say if it plans to seek postponement of the release of the Agency’s remaining JFK records.

“CIA continues to engage in the process to determine the appropriate next steps with respect to any previously unreleased CIA information,” said spokesperson Nicole de Haay in a written statement released Thursday.

Jones stressed that the JFK Records Act was approved by a vote of 435-0 in October 1992.

“The first President Bush signed this law and everybody in Congress, Republican and Democrat, voted for it,” Jones said.

Jones said he and Grassley plan to thank Bush and enlist the support of all the members of the House and Senate who voted for the JFK Records Act in 1992, including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

Enduring Interest

The JFK assassination story endures in American culture and politics, though most Americans are too young to remember the event itself.

In 2016, Hollywood generated popular feature films about JFK’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, while candidate Donald Trump briefly pushed the bogus theory that Ted Cruz’s father was somehow involved in JFK’s murder.

“I was a sophomore in college in 1963,” Jones recalled. “I’m from that generation that remembers the tragedy of Dallas very vividly.”

Over the years, Jones said he has maintained “an interest in the assassination and all the questions raised about it: did [accused assassin Lee Harvey] Oswald act alone? Did he have accomplices?”

Jones said he had not been in touch with the White House about his plans.

“Right now, we’re just laying the foundation, reminding the American people what was done in 1992," he said. "We want to start that process again. If we can build some national interest and support for what’s being done [by the releasing agencies], that might help.”

Jones likened his JFK resolution to congressional efforts to declassify a portion of the 9/11 Commission report.

“We spent three years beating the drum for release of the 28 pages from the 9/11 report,” he said. The 28 pages, released this summer, revealed multiple links between the hijackers and associates of Saudi prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to Washington.

Four Revelations

The first batch of JFK records, released by the National Archives in July, generated several new revelations that cast doubt on the official story.